Upgrading, Development and Integration of Next Generation Earthquake Engineering Experimental Capability at Rensselaer's 100 g-ton Geotechnical Centrifuge

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CMS-0086555DobryThe Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program is a project funded under the NSF Major Research Equipment Program. This cooperative agreement, under the NEES Program, establishes a NEES centrifuge earthquake engineering research equipment site at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). RPI will design, purchase, construct, install, commission, and operate new equipment for, and upgrades to, its existing 100 g-ton Geotechnical Centrifuge. The upgraded Centrifuge will be operational by 2004 or earlier and will be managed as a national shared-use NEES equipment site, with teleobservation and teleoperation capabilities, to provide new earthquake engineering research testing capabilities through 2014. This NEES equipment site will be connected to the NEES collaboratory through a high performance network. Shared-use access and training will be coordinated through the NEES Consortium. This award is the outcome of peer review of this proposal submitted to program solicitation NSF 00-6, NEES: Earthquake Engineering Research Equipment. RPI's Geotechnical Centrifuge has been successfully used by RPI faculty and students and other researchers since 1991. The Centrifuge is located centrally on the RPI campus in the Jonsson Engineering Center. This award provides the following equipment: (a) one 2D in flight shaker (two prototype horizontal components) and associated 2D laminar box container to allow for more realistic 2D modeling, (b) modifications to the Centrifuge to enable safe operation of the 2D shaker, (c) one four degree-of-freedom robot, robot tools, and associated software, capable of performing in flight operations such as construction and excavation, pile driving, ground remediation, cone penetration, and static and cyclic loading tests without stopping the Centrifuge, (d) a networked data acquisition system with Internet teleobservation/teleoperation capability, to be linked to the high-speed RPI Gigabit Ethernet Backbone, (e) two high-speed cameras, image processing software, and commercial sensors, (f) advanced sensors for better resolution of the measured model response, and (g) additional instruments, special containers, and other equipment. This upgraded Centrifuge will provide capabilities to investigate three important problems in earthquake engineering: lateral spreading and flow failure due to soil liquefaction, soil-structure interaction and foundation response due to liquefaction and lateral spreading, and the seismic behavior of innovative slope stabilization systems. This award includes a subaward to the University of California, San Diego, for a pilot project during the development of the Centrifuge's teleobservation/teleoperation capability. RPI will integrate experimentation with the upgraded Centrifuge into its research program and undergraduate and graduate curricula and provide training opportunities for outside researchers.